Adwords Quality Score slap after account reorganisation

I moved some adgroups and split campaigns for better targetting

[idolw]

Yesterday I made some structure changes to one Adwords account I run.
What I did:
- I am using broad match in many ad groups and now decided to add some of the keywords as exact match with higher bids.
- moved adgroups between campaigns - I had products divided into several campaigns that had the same settings. Wanted to have them all in just one campaign to make it easier to manage.
- once all ads were in one campaign I made 2 copies of the new big campaign and targetted each copy at different locations and languages to be able to play with CPC.

Today I logged in to see how my changes worked and I was extremely surprised to see my QS go extremely down.

Before these changes I had QS of 8-10 for all of my traffic and money making keywords. After these changes my QS went to 3-4 and only some keywords have the default QS of 7.

Now, I cannot really understand what I've done wrong.
I did not disconnect keywords from ads - was moving entire ad groups.
I understand that new copies of the big campaign are new to Google but why the non-copy campaign receive a slap, too?

My website is not affiliate site and I only advertise on Google search and the website itself did not change.

Now, can anyone somehow explain what was done wrong or just give some hint what I've done wrong?

[bluemamba]

I have no reason/motivation to spin anything and I did indeed read that thread on the Adwords forum about the ftp software and many others similar to it. I also don't think that you are in fundamental disagreement with what I wrote, you simply are struggling to come to terms with what's happened. And that's understandable because it is intensely exasperating the feeling of helplessness when you get google slapped unfairly.

I don't know how many keywords you use to advertise your site but from where I sit its about 100,000 across several countries and languages. I also analyse the collective QS of all my campaigns every few hours to see patterns of how it ebbs and flows. All the evidence I have indicates to me that we are dealing with a new algorithm now and we need to learn to adapt to it. If you are seeing 3s and 4s then Google has not shut the door on you. Stick your foot in that door, wedge it open and keep experimenting until you can get a better result. And like I said keep pestering them until they can clue you in better about your specific situation.

[havenrut43]

Then let's all just admit that nobody knows the real answer and everything on this website about Google Adwords is pure conjecture.

[RhinoFish]

your claim that nobody knows is therefore conjecture.
:-)

[Green_Grass]

We KNOW that the holiday season is approaching and that is enough reason for big G to Scr*w us all.

We know we are all going to be whacked. We know we should be ready to present a smiling face when we are whacked. M Gandhi ( the Indian political saint) used to say that if someone slaps one cheek, be ready to present the other one also. In this case, the cheek that is whacked is not on our faces. It is down below..

[GetReal]

As it is, their guidelines are so VAGUE that anything can be considered a violation

Pretty much sums it up....Maybe Google should take over airport security....

GR

[bluemamba]

Uh oh. I am seeing my QS plummeting across the board once again.

[Tropical Island]

I got hit with all sorts of increased minimum bids this morning.

I wrote AW about 2 months ago complaining that keywords that I have used since 2002 and are the back bone of our business were being priced out of reach for us as a small business.

The reply included an illusion to the conversion rate of the keywords. This set off some alarm bells as the conversion rate for our business is not all that essential.

The landing page has all sorts of info on it along with our email address. To see actual prices you must click through to the conversion page. People, being people, are lazy & many just send us an email asking about availability & other detail information without ever getting to the conversion page.

After another wave of increased minimum bids yesterday I've created a new ad directly to the conversion page.
This will increase conversions as the 2 ads run concurrently &, hopefully, reduce the minimum bids.

If I notice any changes I will let you know.

[smallcompany]

- g adwords
- g analytics
- g conversion tracking
- g optimizer
- g keyword tool
- g anything else?

It reminds me on books with brain washing as a main topic.

Too much information is being fed to this G animal which is still based on an algorithm, meaning a machine.

We're still very far away from HAL 9000 [en.wikipedia.org] (which BTW screwed up things very badly in that Clarke's masterpiece).

Furthermore, in Odyssey Two:

Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security.

And that's not all. That Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer gets SAL 9000 (female).

Can you imagine what is going to happen when HAL and SAL start reproducing... oh man ... help!

[Neocortex]

i have 15% CTR for my keyword and QS is 3/10 and estimate first page bid is 1.25$?

before the mess QS was 9/10 and EFPB 0.03$!

interesting thing is that i have set max CPC to 0.20$ and ad is showing in google search!?

so it is really crappy situation and it last to long already...

i have started to advertise on google network with ok CPC around 0.07$ and have paused google search camaign

[Tropical Island]

This morning most of my keywords have been wiped out with minimum bids as high as $3.50 for keywords that have reasonable CTR & have been my main income generator since 2002.

It's a good thing I've diversified with FaceBook, TripAdvisor & others.

They are keeping us in business.

Actually the content network is working pretty good with much lower CPC.

[HRoth]

I've been running two campaigns, one since 2005 and the other since 2007. Both were for various keywords of a cost of less than .10 and have had the same pages, the same ad copy, and I have had q/s of 7-10 for all keywords with CTRs varying from 1%-100%. During the last dustup, my qs dropped but then came back. Today I see the qs has dropped for every single keyword in all campaigns and they are asking, instead of, say, 8 cents/click, 1.25 click. They must be insane. I deleted all my campaigns. I am so sick of them jerking me around like this. FIVE YEARS with the same campaign and good quality scores never less than 7!

[idolw]

Well I was one of those who's QS went back to normal after the glitch. Sadly, it did not last long and yesterday I saw QS slap by some 50% across the board. Where it was 6-8 I now have 3 and 4.
The only thing I did this month was add a number of queries from the search query report as exact match keywords.
Really sad.

[woop01]

Google has acknowledged an issue...

[google.com...]

[Tropical Island]

Hopefully some reason will return.

My spend is cut in half & it's killing my small business.

Google please correct the problems. Something is not right.

[chrism]

my quality scores have returned overnight back to the levels of before the first drop.

[Tropical Island]

Almost all the minimum bids have fallen over night. Most of my principal keywords are back running.

Hopefully this is a permanent fix.

[idolw]

why only "most" and not "all"?

[Tropical Island]

idolw:

I will always have the problem that our location name is the same as a very popular alcoholic drink. We often compete on short search terms with this drink that is heavily advertised for ingredients, recipes, glasses, etc., etc

Not much that I can do about it.

How does G know if the searcher puts in 1 search word whether they are after the drink or our Island.

Even when the searcher puts in more info we are influenced by broad search for ads that don't have the correct negative keywords & relate to the drink.

It's a frustration.

[HRoth]

Mine's back too. Taught me a lesson, though. I start investing in print ads to reach those Luddites out there.

[bluemamba]

My QS has also recovered today. But seeing the numbers plummet once again sure bummed me out over the weekend. I think the bottom line here is that Quality Score is a good enough concept, but Google's implementation of it has been deeply flawed. What has really aggravated the situation is Google's lack of transparency and poor customer service. There is no doubt that their runaway success has allowed a touch of arrogance and a pinch of hubris to creep in along the way.

[idolw]

Mine are back partially. Most of them are back but not all, so there was either an update or the glitch is still there.

[RhinoFish]

qs roller coaster + q4 + black friday = aaaaaaaaaaccccckkkkkkkk.

[Neocortex]

after one month my QS are back to normal